BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, October 1st, 2015 -- The Free
Software Foundation (FSF) today announced publication of "The
Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement," co-authored with
the Software Freedom Conservancy. The document lays out the principles
that both organizations follow when they receive reports that a
company is violating copyleft terms like the GNU General Public
License (GNU GPL).

The FSF and Conservancy each lead worldwide efforts to ensure
compliance with the GPL family of licenses. The principles they
follow are designed to make copyleft license enforcement first and
foremost serve the goal of protecting user freedom, which includes
assisting companies to correctly distribute free software. This means
carefully verifying violation reports, approaching companies privately
rather than publicly shaming them, treating legal action as a last
resort, and never prioritizing financial gain over defending the
freedom of users.

"GPL enforcement is mostly an educational process working with people
who have made honest mistakes, but it must be undertaken with care and
thoughtfulness. Our goal is not to punish or censure violators, but to
help them come into compliance. Abiding by these principles aids our
work in bringing about that outcome," said FSF's licensing and
compliance manager, Joshua Gay.

"These principles have guided our efforts in defending the rights of
computer users since at least 2001. We wanted to collect them and
write them down in one place both to bust some myths about our GNU GPL
enforcement work, and to help other individuals and organizations
get started with their own processes," said FSF's executive director,
John Sullivan.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating
system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free
software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
More information about the FSF, as well as important information for
journalists and publishers, is at https://www.fsf.org/press.

About the GNU Operating System and Linux

Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a
free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only
operating system developed specifically for the sake of users'
freedom. See https://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.
In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for
one, the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under
the GNU GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux
formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for
the first time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination
is the GNU/Linux system. For more explanation, see
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.